Lawyers to Congress: It’s Time to Fund the IRS Adequately

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The American Bar Association sent a letter to key congressional leaders Tuesday expressing concerns about funding for the Internal Revenue Service.

Karen Hawkins, chair of the ABA’s tax section, said “we continue to be concerned that the Service’s widely acknowledged and continuing budgetary and resource constraints have eroded its capacity to accomplish its core responsibilities as the nation’s tax administrator and collector.” As a result, Americans are losing faith in both the IRS and the tax system, which “endangers our federal government’s ability to properly fund itself,” Hawkins wrote.

Additionally, the many new rules in the tax code mean that “appropriate and adequate funding” is more important than ever. Hawkins reminded lawmakers that IRS funding is one of the few things in government that clearly pays for itself: “We recognize the intense budgetary pressures that our federal government faces. Nonetheless, providing appropriate funding to the Service is one of the few governmental expenditures that provides both an immediate return on investment – each dollar spent on enforcement by IRS personnel produces multiple dollars of additional money in tax collections – and a long-term benefit to the effectiveness and credibility of our tax system.”